I need your help, please. A friend of mine passed away suddenly about two months ago. I'm trying to help his wife/widow sell off a portion of his collection (per his request) to help her financially and not have to worry about money so much during this rough time.

Right now, I've got his Winchester Model 42 .410 Skeet shotgun, and I'd really appreciate it if any of you could give me historical information and a fair market value. She doesn't care to sell it for absolute "top of the mark" value, but I do want to make sure she gets at least gets 75-80% of the most someone would expect to pay for it.

It is a beautiful shotgun! It has two chokes (FC & Mod). The only real "flaw" I can see (other than light handling marks on the stock and wear from use on the barrel and magazine tube) is what might be either a crack in the wood or just a crack in the finish near the top right receiver tang. Please see the pictures below. I tried to take pictures from just about every angle possible, but if you need another picture or more information, please just let me know.

Thank you in advance for helping me help out a very good cause. Any help on value and advice on the best place to sell this would be GREATLY appreciated!

It appears that you have a pre war,model 42,[ serial # 1-52000] would indicate that it was made,in the pre war years.The crack in the stock would devalue the gun somewhat and the addition of the Lyman cutts compensator,would detract from the original factory unaltered value.IMHO,the gun without the addition of the cutts compensator and the crack in the stock would be a 95% value of $5500.00.I would check into Gun Brokers.com,for a possible posting .The gun appears to be used ,but not abused,in it's usage?

Looks to me like I can follow the line all the way around and back to the frame about half way down. Very likely a quarter sized chunk broke out of the head of the stock and was not too carefully glued back in. A good wood person could probably make that much less obtrusive. The after-market Cutts Compensator added to the gun severly detracts from market value. Still, people go nuts for Model 42s, so it is still probably a $2000 shooter.

Researcher is right on. The gun would be a $3500 to $4000 gun with a flawless stock and no Cutts. The Cutts is a $1000 problem and the stock is at least a $500 problem. It is a nice gun and worth about $2000.

Thank you so much for the information, both of you! If I post this for sale here on SW, do you feel that we would have trouble getting $1,700 shipped for it? Or would it be best to list it on GunBroker to get an amount like that? I'll be shipping it insured and in the hard case. Thanks again for all of your help!!

Having the wood repaired professionally will not make the repair go away and will probably require some cleanup of the checkering and a light refinish of the wood, both butt stock and forearm to make it look right. That's a $500 expense on top of the purchase price, but the gun does have a solid rib. I think $2K is pushing it a bit, but some guys really like Cutts guns. Hold out for the right buyer if you can.

I'm smitten by Win 42s and would like one for skeet shooting only. My question: is it a good idea to purchase and affordable field model and having Simmons do its magic installing vent rib, stock and reblung? I might also have Briley chokes installed. I'm looking at it as a shooter, not trying creating a fake.

Yup, the way to do it is to purchase a relatively high condition field grade gun and send it to Simmons for the full workup. I would like to do that, but like to do it myself. I think the Simmons route is the best one.